Unconscious Collaboration (Number 1)

William Powhida is best known for his text-based critques of the often-insular world of contemporary art, targeting its celebrity artists, mega-galleries, and prominent museums with equal vigor. Powhida often questions the market-based measures of artistic success, using narrative and self-parody to consider his own career circumstances. For his print Unconscious Collaboration, which was published as part of the Lower East Side Printshop’s Mystery Print fundraiser, Powhida created a trompe l'oeil facsimile and parody of a fictional illustrated feature from the now-defunct magazine Art on Paper. The faux article details a scandal at the Printshop itself that involved Powhida, who in a moment of self-doubt sabotages his Mystery Print project and eventually co-opts and signs his own name to a print edition created by another workshop artist. The print is both self-referential and performative, where the story and the artwork merge into a single entity. According to the artist, the viewer encounters the work “not as art maybe, but some sort of press, and then discovers the art, the narrative, the critique, beyond the illusion.” Powhida certainly enjoys his role as instigator, stating: “I think that uncertainty, however absurd, is what I want people to feel.”